Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons^™

Decoding The Plant Metabolome: A Metabolomics Approach To Guereza (Colobus Guereza) Feeding Ecology In Kibale National Park, Uganda, Emma Grace Thurau

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Plant metabolites, an elusive and diverse group of plant chemicals, represent a complex chemical interplay between plants and herbivores. Plants contain essential nutrients necessary for herbivore survival, yet herbivore consumption results in negative fitness consequences to a plant. This relationship has triggered a coevolutionary arms race in which plants have evolved chemical defenses to prevent herbivore consumption and herbivores, in response, have evolved their own counter-adaptations. This arms race has led to the diverse numbers of herbivores and plants observed today; therefore, these plant metabolites act as a signature of evolution through their influence on herbivore adaptations. Plant metabolites are …

Ecospiritual Entanglement, Ali Vedad Yüner

Masters Theses

Land breeds culture. It gives us the resources to thrive, and in that process we establish a relationship with its constituents. With a multitude of beings inhabiting the land, a complex web of relationships develop. Biology describes these relationships as food webs; the mass entanglement of organisms in a manner that each organism nourishes the other. These webs are not just mere scientific structures but rather an interpretation of existential connections that every organism in the world, humans included, are indebted to. Food webs are the first stepping stone in the formation of culture, as they account for the engagement …

Field Journal: The Excluded Middle, Carrie E. Kouts

Masters Theses

What does it look like to engage with organisms and landscapes at the periphery of anthropocentric value structures? How does one break the internalized myth that the “built” environment is excluded from the natural world? When does a hyper-mobile and hyper-commodified society confront the exponential crisis of animal death? Within this series of journal entries, field notes, collection observations, weird prose, and sensory musings, one will find questions on the nature of being human and the complex narratives of care we encounter in a world shared with more-than-humans. Each handwritten vignette and photograph from daily life weaves a non-linear and …

Four Synonyms Of Tetraleurodes Mori (Quaintance, 1899) (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodidae), Natalia Von Ellenrieder, Raymond J. Gill, Ian C. Stocks

Insecta Mundi

Examination of type specimens of Aleyrodes errans Bemis, 1904, A. dorseyi Kotinsky, 1907 (replacement name for A. quaintancei Bemis, 1904), and A. splendens Bemis, 1904 and comparison with a large series of specimens of Tetraleurodes mori (Quaintance, 1899) (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodidae) confirms that the first four names represent new junior subjective synonyms of the latter species, since their types do not differ from it in any significant way and display the combination of diagnostic characters that identifies that species.

Resumen

El análisis de ejemplares tipo de Aleyrodes errans Bemis, 1904, A. dorseyi Kotinsky, 1907 (nombre de …

New Species Of Phaea Newman (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae: Tetraopini), With Notes On Some Known Species And New Records, Antonio Santos-Silva, Frederick W. Skillman Jr.

Insecta Mundi

Four new species of Phaea Newman, 1840 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae: Tetraopini) are described: P. antiguaensis Santos-Silva and Skillman, new species, from Guatemala; P. autlanensis Santos- Silva and Skillman, new species, from Mexico (Jalisco); P. hildebranti Santos-Silva and Skillman, new species, from Mexico (Jalisco and Michoacán); and P. minatitleca Santos-Silva and Skillman, new species, from Mexico (Colima). Notes on the identity of Phaea vitticollis Bates, 1872 are provided. Phaea lingafelteri Heffern, Santos-Silva and Nascimento, 2018 is recorded from Honduras and Phaea quadrimaculata Wappes and Santos- Silva, 2021 is recorded from the Mexican state of Guerrero. Notes on the chromatic and morphological …

Contributions To The Taxonomy Of The Neotropical Millipede Genus Iulidesmus Silvestri, 1895 (Diplopoda: Polydesmida: Paradoxosomatidae: Catharosomatini), Sergei I. Golavatch, Juan Romero-Rincon, Nesrine Akkari, Santiago Alvear

Insecta Mundi

Three new species of Iulidesmus Silvestri, 1895 (Diplopoda: Polydesmida: Paradoxosomatidae), one of the most species-rich genera of Diplopoda globally that currently encompasses about 90 species, are described from the Andes: I. inga Golovatch, Romero-Rincon, Akkari and Alvear, new species, from Colombia. I. bilobus Golovatch, Romero-Rincon, Akkari and Alvear, new species, from Ecuador, and I. zakharovi Golovatch, Romero-Rincon, Akkari and Alvear, new species, from Peru. The following new combination is proposed: Iulidesmus alagoanus (Schubart, 1950), from Brazil, new combination, ex Habrodesmus Cook, 1896. The female holotypes of Strongylosoma glabrum Peters, 1865, from Colombia, and …

Melittological Notes From Guatemala (Hymenoptera: Anthophila), 2. New Country Records For Apidae (Anthophorini And Centridini) And Halictidae (Augochlorini), Ana Cristina Garcia-Cordon, José Monzón-Sierra, Richard S. Zack, Silas Bossert

Insecta Mundi

We report three new country records of bee species (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) from Guatemala: Centris flavifrons Fabricius and Deltoptila costaricensis Friese, both in the family Apidae, and Caenaugochlora costaricensis Friese, in the family Halictidae. We illustrate the species and discuss their present-day distribution. These new data contribute to the growing knowledge on native bee diversity from Central America, especially from Guatemala.

Resumen

Reportamos tres nuevos registros de abejas (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) en Guatemala, Centris flavifrons Fabricius y Deltoptila costaricensis Friese, ambas de la familia Apidae, y Caenaugochlora costaricensis Friese, de la familia Halictidae. Presentamos las especies y discutimos su distribución actual. Estos …

A New Species Of Chrysobothris Eschscholtz, 1829 And Synonymy Of Two Species Of Acmaeodera Eschscholtz, 1829 From Baja California Sur, Mexico (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), Richard L. Westcott

Insecta Mundi

A new species of Buprestidae (Coleoptera), Chrysobothris bajacalifornica Westcott, is described from Baja California Sur, Mexico and discussed in relation to species I consider related to it. Acmaeodera lagunae Van Dyke, 1945 is newly synonymized under A. flavosticta Horn, 1878, and A. lucana Van Dyke, 1942 is newly synonymized under A. subbalteata LeConte, 1863. A lectotype is designated for A. flavosticta Horn.

Assessing Niche Differences Across The Dwarf Salamander Species Complex Of The Southeast Us, Sarah Roy

LSU Master's Theses

Characterizing niche differences in closely related species can provide valuable insights into the extent of ecological divergence between species, and the potential evolutionary processes behind speciation. This study builds the first ecological niche models for the Eurycea dwarf salamander species complex, which includes five species with varying distributions across the southeastern United States. Ecological niche models (ENMs) were built for each species using the machine-learning algorithm, MaxEnt. We used pairwise niche overlap analyses and statistical validation techniques to investigate potential ecological drivers behind species divergence and the degree of niche overlap among the five Eurycea species. We found an overall …

Comparative Methylation Analyses Across Juglans Species To Investigate Epigenetic Contributions To Fungal Resistance, Keertana Chagari

Honors Scholar Theses

Juglans cinerea (butternut) is a critically threatened North American tree species experiencing severe declines due to the fungal pathogen Ophiognomonia clavigignentijuglandacearum. In contrast, its Asian relative, Juglans ailantifolia (Japanese walnut), shows natural resistance. To investigate the genomic and epigenetic factors underlying this difference, we constructed and analyzed high-quality, chromosome-level genome assemblies for both species from long-read sequencing data (J. ailantifolia: 527Mb; J. cinerea: 586Mb), focusing on transposable element (TE) content, DNA methylation patterns, and regulation of pathogen resistance genes (PRGs).

Repeat analysis revealed that J. cinerea has a slightly higher overall transposable element (TE) content, with …

Discovery Of Anisobas Irwini Claridge, New Species, And New Host And Distribution Records Of Anisobas Coloradensis (Cresson) (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae: Ichneumoninae: Ichneumonini), Brandon R. Claridge, Kyri A. Forman

Insecta Mundi

Anisobas Wesmael (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae: Ichneumoninae: Ichneumonini) is a moderately diverse parasitoid wasp genus present in the Holarctic and Indo-Malaysian regions. Here, we advance taxonomic knowledge of western Nearctic Anisobas by documenting new rearing and distribution records for A. coloradensis (Cresson) and describe A. irwini Claridge, new species, from central Arizona. There are now seven known Nearctic Anisobas species.

A New Genus And New Synonyms For Liburnia Reducta Van Duzee, 1907 (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Delphacoidea: Delphacidae), Charles R. Bartlett, Adam M. Wallner

Insecta Mundi

The delphacid species Liburnia reducta Van Duzee is transferred to the new genus Calkinodelphax Bartlett and Wallner (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Delphacoidea: Delphacidae) and is designated the type species of this genus under the name Calkinodelphax reductus (Van Duzee), new combination. Calkinodelphax reductus is broadly distributed from Florida, the Antilles, Central America, and northern South America. Calkinodelphax reductus is the subjective senior synonym of Pissonotus striolus Osborn, Delphacodes cornuta Beamer, and Euides fasciatella auct. (nec. Osborn). A new lectotype is designated for Liburnia reducta Van Duzee. The female holotype and male allotype of Liburniella fasciatella Osborn were reviewed and found to …

New Records Of Liparthrum Squamosum Blackman (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Hypoborini) In Pennsylvania, Dani J. Firth, Lawrence E. Barringer

Insecta Mundi

Liparthrum squamosum Blackman (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae: Hypoborini) is reported for the first time from Pennsylvania. A single specimen was found in 2015 and four subsequent specimens were collected in 2024 through several insect trap and lure combinations. These records increase the known range for this species in the eastern United States.

From Epidemics To Experimental Treatments: Amphibian Mass Mortality Events And A Potential Treatment For Chytridiomycosis, Daniel Callahan

Graduate Masters Theses

Worldwide, amphibian populations have experienced dramatic declines due to a variety of threats. Among them, disease has been particularly deleterious and continues to impact populations. In the United States and Canada, the three leading causes of amphibian mass mortality events are ranavirosis, chytridiomycosis, and severe perkinsea infection, all caused by infectious pathogens. While research and policy have helped populations recover from these diseases, more work needs to be done to develop practical and efficient treatments for these infections. Of these three diseases, chytridiomycosis has had the most devastating effects on amphibian populations globally. Caused by the chytrid fungi Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis …

Adaptation And Discovery In The Ethiopian Highlands: Testing Rules, Cryptic Shrews, And Patterns Of Montane Mammal Diversity, Evan W. Craig

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Montane landscapes of the Horn of Africa harbor exceptional but incompletely documented biodiversity. Focusing on rodents and shrews—the dominant but least studied of Ethiopia’s high-elevation fauna—this dissertation integrates repeat faunal surveys, genomic taxonomy, and phylogenetically informed modelling to clarify how small mammals distribute, diversify, and morphologically adapt across steep elevational gradients.

A century‐scale resurvey of Simien Mountains National Park (1927-2015) revealed significant upward range shifts for multiple species and a persistent mid-elevation richness peak, implicating warming temperatures as a driver of community reassembly. Museomics using genome-skimming and craniodental morphometrics subsequently uncovered a deeply divergent miniature shrew lineage within the Crocidura …

Advancing Butterfly Systematics Through Genomic Analysis, Jing Zhang, Qian Cong, Jinhui Shen, Leina Song, Nick V. Grishin

The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey

Within the framework of an ongoing comparative genomic study of global butterfly diversity, we construct phylogenetic trees combining all protein-coding genes assembled from the whole genome shotgun data. When viewed in the context of current taxonomy and phenotypic knowledge, the genome-wide phylogeny points to further advances in butterfly systematics, which are presented here. We assign major clades with comparable levels of genetic divergence to the same taxonomic rank and apply criteria involving relative population divergence and gene flow to define species boundaries. As a result, one genus, 13 subgenera, 62 species, and five subspecies are proposed as new (type species …

Cost-Effective Solutions For High-Throughput Enzymatic Dna Methylation Sequencing, Amy Longtin, Marina M. Watowich, Baptiste Sadoughi, Rachel M. Petersen, Sarah F. Brosnan, Kenneth Buetow, Qiuyin Cai, Cayo Biobank Research Unit, Vanderbilt University, Michael D. Gurven, James P. Higham, Heather M. Highland, Yi-Ting Huang, Hillard Kaplan, Thomas S. Kraft, Yvonne A. L. Lim, Jirong Long, Amanda D. Melin, Michael J. Montagne, Jamie Roberson, Kee Seong Ng, Michael L. Platt, India A. Schneider-Crease, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Vivek Venkataraman, Ian J. Wallace, Jie Wu, Noah Snyder-Mackler, Angela Jones, Alexander G. Bick, Amanda J. Lea

ESI Publications

Characterizing DNA methylation patterns is important for addressing key questions in evolutionary biology, development, geroscience, and medical genomics. While costs are decreasing, whole-genome DNA methylation profiling remains prohibitively expensive for most population-scale studies, creating a need for cost-effective, reduced representation approaches (i.e., assays that rely on microarrays, enzyme digests, or sequence capture to target a subset of the genome). Most common whole genome and reduced representation techniques rely on bisulfite conversion, which can damage DNA resulting in DNA loss and sequencing biases. Enzymatic methyl sequencing (EM-seq) was recently proposed to overcome these issues, but thorough benchmarking of EM-seq combined with …

Sexual And Vegetative Recruitment Of Trembling Aspen Following A High-Severity Boreal Wildfire, Denyse A. Dawe, Ellen Whitman, Michael Michaelian, Alan J. Tepley, Marc-André Parisien

Aspen Bibliography

Background High-severity fire is rare in trembling aspen-dominated forests of the boreal region. The post-fire recruitment strategy of aspen, by either vegetative suckering or sexually (i.e., by seed), has considerable implications for subsequent forest structure, genetic diversity, and ecological resilience to shifting climatic and disturbance regimes. In this study, we take advantage of the unique opportunity provided by the Chuckegg Creek Wildfire Fire (310,000 ha) in northern Alberta, Canada, which burned at high severity through aspen stands before and after spring green-up, to document how phenology, fire severity, and stand characteristics affect recruitment one year following the fire.

Results We …

Factors Impacting The Variability Of Post-Fire Forest Regeneration In Central European Pine Plantations, Florent Jouy, Maren Schüle, Yojana Adhikari, Anja Binder, Danica Clerc, Werner Gerwin, Thilo Heinken, Thomas Raab, Frank Repmann, Susanne Rönnefarth, Marina Schirrmacher, Marie-Therese Schmehl, Jens Schröder, Pierre L. Ibisch

Aspen Bibliography

Fire is increasingly posing a risk to forests and plantations, even in the temperate latitudes of central Europe. Little is known about fire ecology in this region, and therefore, appropriate approaches for the management and reforestation of burned sites are mostly lacking. In a Scots pine plantation region in Brandenburg (northeast Germany), the early tree regeneration of two nearby areas that burned 1 year apart was investigated. We observed that 3 years after the fire events, the forest in one study area showed a relatively high regeneration with a mean density of 7765 saplings/ha, clearly dominated by European aspen (93%); …

Network Analysis Of Antimicrobial Resistance In Staphylococcus Aureus: Characterization Of Hub Genes And Their Functional Implications, Md Imran Hasan, Davida Smyth, Jeong Yang, Ashley Teufel

Masters Theses (Archived)

Antimicrobial resistance is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with S. aureus infections. In this study, we analyzed genes, molecular mechanisms, and pathways driving drug resistance in S. aureus using network analysis. Using whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data and systems biology approaches, we identified 229 AMR-associated genes and constructed a protein-protein interaction network among these genes. Through network topology and functional enrichment analyses, we not only confirmed their association with resistance, but also highlighted the central roles of these genes in resistance pathways, such as efflux, target replacement, and target protection, which are directly linked to multiple drug …